From Beaux-Arts Glamour to Haunted Attractions: The Liberty Theatre's Transformation on W. 41st Street

The Liberty Theatre, built in 1904 on W. 41st Street, was designed by Herts & Tallant in the Beaux-Arts style for Klaw and Erlanger. Its grand 100-foot-long lobby stretched from W. 42nd Street to the auditorium, giving it a more prestigious address. The Neo-Classical façade featured towering caryatides, a massive arched window with a Liberty Bell carving, and a stone American eagle perched above the entrance. Inside, the lobby’s dome gleamed with gilding and aluminum, leading to a promenade and a staircase to the orchestra and balconies. The auditorium, seating over 1,000, continued the patriotic theme with gilded Liberty Bells and eagles adorning the ceiling dome and proscenium arch, while opera boxes lined the side walls.

The Liberty Theatre gained fame for screening exclusive runs of landmark films, including Birth of a Nation (1915), Intolerance (1916), and The Thief of Bagdad (1924). Despite its success as a movie house, it remained a legitimate theater until 1933. As 42nd Street evolved, the Liberty adapted, shifting to movies rather than shutting down like many neighboring theaters. It operated as a cinema for over 50 years before the revitalization of 42nd Street in the early 1990s signaled the end of its golden era.

By 1996, the once-magnificent Beaux-Arts details had been mostly removed or hidden behind a deteriorating marquee. The interior had suffered decades of neglect, with balconies and opera boxes closed off, layers of paint obscuring the original color scheme, and a general state of disrepair. Despite this, the theatre saw a brief revival when it hosted a short run of T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, marking its first legitimate production in over 60 years. However, it quickly shuttered again after the play closed.

In 1997, plans to transform the Liberty into a virtual reality arcade were announced but never materialized. The theatre sat vacant for over a decade until it was restored and reopened as a Famous Dave’s BBQ restaurant in 2011, only to close in 2013. The foyer later housed a bar, while the auditorium was repurposed for special events. By 2015, the space became a Ripley’s Odditorium attraction, which shut down in 2021. Most recently, in 2022, the venue was used for a seasonal haunted house attraction named Terror, continuing the Liberty Theatre’s long history of adaptation and reinvention.